


Not Less Than Everything

by rexluscus



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Break Up, Infidelity, Jealousy, M/M, POV First Person, Priests, Religion, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-05
Updated: 2011-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-21 02:16:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rexluscus/pseuds/rexluscus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The beginning, the middle, and the end of a relationship. Not necessarily in that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Less Than Everything

**Author's Note:**

> The first long fanfic I ever posted to the internet. A magnum opus! Forgive the gratuitous T.S. Eliot epigraphs - I was young. Story also owes a lot to all the Graham Greene novels I was reading at the time. As well as to the kind help of my friends Lorelei and Dark Hedgehog.

_"What might have been and what has been  
Point to one end, which is always present.  
Footfalls echo in the memory  
Down the passage which we did not take  
Toward the door we never opened  
Into the rose-garden."_

T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"

  
Read a poem once. Good poem. Could've done without all the stuff about God. But I'm thinking of it because it had this line in it: "Love is more nearly itself, when here and now cease to matter."

That's bullshit. Look, I'd like to say to this chump, you clearly never had to hold your lover in your arms and listen to him say that you're _never_ going to see him again, and knowing—being completely certain—this is the last time you will ever touch him.

Imagine it. You can practically feel the time escaping from between your bodies with each beat of his heart against your chest. You try to focus of the warm, solid _realness_ of his body in your arms but you can't make yourself forget that it'll soon be gone. And you realize that the frothing hatred you feel for that end makes it come for you even faster. Great if you're into irony. No matter how much you try just to _feel_ for these last few seconds—to concentrate on the smell of his hair, the gentle sink and swell of his breathing—you can't forget that you're storing up that moment to last you the rest of your life.

And when it's over and he pulls away, it's like that moment was _always_ lost, already gone before it even began. And you're stuck with now, that long, cold here and now, where you don't have him, and you never had him, and you never will again.

  
Kurt never told me he was planning on running off to the seminary. I can't let him off the hook by saying he thought I knew, either. It's not just that I didn't expect it—I'd no more expected him to go be a priest than I'd expected him to become an astronaut or a deep-sea diver. We'd talked about his religion a couple of times—it was hard to ignore, seeing as I had to stare at that little gold cross lying in the hollow of his throat, rising and falling with his quick breaths as I made love to him. Sometimes I worried that maybe, somewhere deep down, he hated me for tempting him—or sullying him, or however it is they think it works. But—and again with the irony—Kurt's faith had always been something I _loved_ him for. You get to be my age—believe me, few people do—and you start wanting to hang around people who have the things you can't have anymore, like faith in people, and belief in the world's basic goodness. I loved being close to that. I never dreamed I'd have to compete with it.

Then one day I wandered into his room and found him packing. The guilty look he gave me told me the important stuff; the rest was just excuses. He wasn't happy with the X-Men. He didn't feel useful. He didn't like defining himself by the fact he was a mutant. He was going to do something that felt more right to him blah blah blah.

It probably ain't a good idea to take what you're feeling when your lover says he's leaving you for the Church as the sum total of your religious beliefs. But if ever there was a time when I believed in God less or hated him more, I can't recall it.

And as much as I always tried to be fair and see things his way, I learned at that moment how big the difference is between someone who believes and someone who doesn't. Sure, so some abstract father-figure and a wooden effigy behind an altar helped get him through the day. Fine. But I could do that for him, too. And I was real, flesh and blood real, and could touch him and hold him and talk to him. How could a few bits of wood and some old stories compare to that? How could he pick God over _me?_

I didn't say it quite like that—for one thing, it came out a lot more angry and selfish and stupid. He didn't ignore me, and when I was done he didn't argue. He just zipped up his bag, then kissed my cheek and leaned his forehead against my temple like he'd done so many times before, mumbled an awkward "I'm sorry," like he was embarrassed to admit it, and walked out.

And I stood there stiff as a board because, like the macho prick I am, I'd chosen to be angry. My plan was to punish him with the cold shoulder—because I still figured I'd have a chance to make it up to him later. I didn't get it then—that there would _be_ no other chances. I should have taken that little bit he offered.

So after that, everything I did was an attempt to make those chances, to fight the _forever_ of what he'd done. I've never been the kind to take things lying down, and my experience has taught me that there's usually a way out of any tight situation, as long as you have the will and the patience. There was a way to convince Kurt that he was screwing up; I just had to find it.

I make it sound like I just ran out the door after him, but that's not how it happened at all. Maybe that's what I should have done, but I also ain't the kind to admit being wrong so fast.

Instead, I sat on it a few weeks, making everyone around me miserable, doing nothing, thinking nothing, perversely getting a feel for the size and shape of the hole that had opened up in my life. Somehow I convinced myself that I didn't think about him every second of the day. That I barely noticed he was gone. Then one day, I was suddenly running for my bike, knowing I had to get to Brooklyn immediately, knowing I was going to lose my mind if I didn't at least see him one more time.

I don't even remember the drive. Hell, I don't even remember calling the operator for the address, though apparently I did. I was on autopilot—guess I was afraid my pride would sabotage me if I let myself think too hard about what I was doing. Then finally I was there, and there was a big door, and through the door I found a receptionist, and I asked her about Kurt. She said something about calling up to the rector's office. And still none of it seemed real.

Standing there in the dim, musty old brownstone living room, with its mildewy rug, and four rummage-sale chairs, and little hair-netted, bespectacled receptionist, I thought about what would happen when he came down. I thought about what it would be like to touch him again, to kiss his lips, everyone else around us be damned—so to speak. Who cared if this was a house of God—I'd let God see how it felt for the shoe to be on the other foot for a change. And I'd show Kurt what he'd been missing, make him see he couldn't leave it behind.

All this was so real that when he finally came down the staircase, I forgot to notice how beautiful he was and just thought about how much it was going to hurt if he didn't at least let me touch his face.

The receptionist fidgeted in that funny way people always do around Kurt—trying to stare at him without _looking_ like she was staring. Kurt gave her a smile as he came down, then turned his smile on me, and stopped about five feet away. This from a man who'd sit in everyone's lap if they'd let him, so either he didn't trust me or he didn't trust himself. I desperately hoped it was that last one.

"Logan," he said.

"Had to see you," I blurted out as explanation.

His eyes flickered nervously, and he threw a quick glance at the receptionist. "Let's go outside and talk," he said.

Out on the stoop, he still kept his distance. My hands itched to pull him closer, but I've hunted long enough to know when a cornered animal's ready to give up its life, and when it's going to bolt if you move.

"How've you been? How's the studying going?" I started awkwardly, not knowing what to say.

"Okay," he answered, fidgeting.

Everything felt strange. He was so far away, so locked up inside himself, with his hands in his pockets and his face turned slightly away from me.

"I can't sleep at night," I offered suddenly, not caring how pathetic it sounded.

He didn't answer, but looked a little more uncomfortable than before. I dared to move a little closer, and he blinked but didn't pull away. I lifted a hand towards his cheek to stroke it.

"Don't," he said, flinching.

I let the hand drop.

After a while, I asked, "Do they treat you all right?"

He said, "Yes. They don't care about the way I look."

"They should," I told him.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if they had blood in their veins, they'd see what I see," I said.

"Please don't," he sighed.

I stopped talking.

It was getting late. The sun disappeared from the upper storeys of the buildings across the street; the air was getting chilly. I realized we'd gone a long time without saying anything, but he was still there, hugging himself and shivering a little in the cold—he was only wearing a T-shirt.

We sat side by side silently, looking out over the street. For a second, I was painfully aware of time draining away like water through a crack, gone forever. I took off my jacket and settled it around his shoulders.

"Come back with me," I said.

"I can't."

"Why?" I let my hand rest on his arm where I'd been arranging the jacket. "Why not?"

"I'm happy here."

"Yeah? Then why did you say 'I can't' instead of 'I don't want to'?"

He sighed, a little shakily. "Logan," he said, "I didn't leave you because I thought what we were doing was wrong, if that's what you think."

"I don't care about any of that," I said, my voice getting louder. "I just want you back."

"Yes. I know you don't care about any of that."

I looked at him. He looked back, his eyes brighter now that the sky was getting dark around us. I hadn't missed the accusation in his voice, and I was scared like I never am in a fight.

"That's not how I meant it..."

"How did you mean it, then?"

I took a breath, trying to keep my cool, trying to think clearly. "What I meant was that I don't care where you lay the blame," I answered finally. "Tell me it was all my fault; that's okay. Ask whatever you want; I'll change. Just come home."

"It had nothing to do with you."

"What?" I could've laughed. Or cried. Or something. Everything I did had to do with him, in some way. How could he do something this big, and think it had nothing to do with me? Guess I _am_ an egomaniac sometimes.

"My decision. It had nothing to do with you. You didn't do anything wrong."

"I don't believe that." Stubborn, too.

"Well," he said, standing and taking off the jacket, "it's the truth." He handed me the jacket and started back inside.

I leapt up and caught his wrist. "Kurt," I said, my voice sounding futile and hollow, "Kurt. Please. Please." I begged for this like I never beg for _anything_ , from _anyone_. He knew it, too; he knows me better than I know myself, sometimes. His eyes held mine, full of pain and indecision.

My hand squeezed around the twin bones of his wrist and for a sudden, strange second I was squeezing too hard. He was mine. It wasn't fair and he was mine, goddamnit. Then I took a breath. No, I told myself. I didn't want what could be taken by force. So I let go.

He hesitated for a moment, cautiously rubbing his wrist, then stepped toward me, slowly, like it was something he didn't really want to do, but had to. And, like he was a lion tamer sticking his head in the beast's mouth, he put his arms around me. And mine went around him and drew his body closer, but he was so wrapped up in himself that he was gone already, and his heartbeat sounded like a chiming clock in my ears marking the fleeing seconds, and I wanted to howl against it, but as much as I can do, stopping time is beyond me. Then he stepped back.

He gazed at me compassionately, but abstractly, like I was some poor jerk he didn't know—like he wanted me to get better, but had nothing to do with it. Like I was some sinner in his confessional. I could barely stand it.

"Kurt," I heard myself say. "Please. I love you."

His breath quickened. "I have to go," he whispered, and hurried inside.

I sat back down on the step, watching the door he'd disappeared into, and didn't move for a long time. I made myself think that if I didn't move, didn't do anything, time would stand still.

Then, as it got darker around me, and the streetlights flickered on, I started to think about my choices. I had a weapon against time that few other folks have. I could return to the wilderness; I could stop being human. An animal has no memory. At my worst moments, I've always been tempted—when Mariko died, for instance. I was tempted now.

Or I could let time go on, and I could damn well make it work the way I wanted it to. Some people call it hope; I call it refusing to give in. There's a reason why my code-name's Wolverine. Let's just say I've never exactly been the letting go type.

  
 _"I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope  
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love  
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith  
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting."_

T.S. Eliot, "East Coker"

* * *

It was three in the morning. The deep silence of the mansion breathed around me as I slid out of bed and pulled on the jeans I'd left lying on the floor. Walking quietly down the halls, I listened to the resting bodies of everyone asleep in their beds—breathing, heartbeats, digestive systems, all sluggish, fluid pulsing, forward and back like a tide. Outside on the patio the sounds were different, farther away, and the crisp, night-heavy air woke me up further.

I let deep lungfuls of air wash me out and realign me like they'd taught me in Japan. Then I tried to be still, hands braced on the marble railing, body balancing lightly in the dark, focussing eyes on the gray nothing of the lawn below. Nothing but breathe in, breathe out. Trying to empty my head of all thoughts.

But the animal wasn't having any of it tonight. The animal that always has to resist and oppose, always bares its teeth for a fight instead of following the flow of things—years of training in Japanese martial and meditative arts had only taught me how to lull him to sleep. On nights when he was restless, when nothing could coax him into peace—well, there was nothing I could do.

I stared into the dark lawn, trying to lose myself in its featurelessness. But that stopped working as soon as my eyes adjusted to the dark, revealing painful amounts of detail in the grass. My sharp senses are part of the animal, too; they keep him awake and aware. Sometimes I wish I were blind, deaf and fumbling like other folks. It would certainly make it easier to sleep. And sure enough, under the surface of the still night, like stars appearing one by one as the dusk fades, all of the night's little noises emerged—insects scraping and burrowing in the grass, dry leaves rattling in the gutters, even the sound of the highway miles off. No peace. There's never any peace.

Then something broke the menace of all that twittering and rattling—the glass door behind me sliding open and then shut. I relaxed a little as a familiar scent drifted over to me—Kurt, sleep-warmed, fur and flannel. He must've known somehow that I was up. He'd be concerned, wanting to talk. I started to tense up all over again as I realized I'd now have to deflect Kurt's worrying. Sometimes you just don't want to explain yourself. Kurt is always begging me to tell him what's wrong—but what's the use of it? I want to ask him. You won't be able to help.

But for some reason, I didn't get the third degree tonight. He came up quietly behind me, since I'd decided not to turn around and greet him. And without saying a word, he came all the way up to me and pressed himself against my back, his slender arms curling around me, his sharp chin coming to rest on my shoulder.

I froze—it was weirdly intimate, and though we were close, we weren't _that_ close. But it was the middle of the night, beyond the middle of the night really, and a body doesn't have much use for inhibitions at that hour. What was the truth: yourself in the daylight, when everyone's looking at you and you've got to put your best foot forward, or yourself in the dark, when there's no one to hide from? Funny thing: Kurt and I—him with his night vision and me with my nose—are both impossible to hide from in the dark.

So I tried to relax. He certainly had. Unlike me, Kurt's never had to struggle much to follow the flow. Showing him that stuff was some of the best teaching hours I ever spent; he took to it like a fish to water, so to speak. He was even doing it now—molding his body to fit against mine, answering all my tensions with soothing replies. Somehow, him pressed up against me like that muffled the noise of my overworked senses, took the edge off my dangerous mood. I pressed back into his warmth and he squeezed tighter, sighing softly and nuzzling his face into the crook of my neck. I felt his lips touch my skin, not in a kiss exactly, just resting there, affirming his presence.

A tremor ran through my insides. Something in me woke up, and it wasn't the animal. I had a flash of a memory—some night not unlike this one, playing our old, lethal version of hide and seek. I had him pinned to the ground—he'd made a wrong move again and I'd caught him. We were both laughing, both breathing hard. His scent and heat surrounded me, and maybe I was just keyed up from the chase but it suddenly felt like my heart was pounding for another reason, and his too. I buried my face in his hair and pressed our bodies together. We were both aroused, I realized, and the shock of it rushed through my limbs. For a while we both just lay there, frozen stiff, too scared to move. Then we pulled apart, laughed it off, went inside like nothing had happened.

The memory came back to me unlooked for, and I wondered how long this thing had lain under the surface, and us just too stupid to see it.

"Couldn't sleep either, huh?" I joked softly, my voice sounding hoarse and unused.

"Mmm...nein."

I kept waiting for him to explain himself. Had he known I was up, or did he have his own problems? Wasn't he going to ask me anything, try to make me confess to all my frailties like he always did? Geez, he was so much easier to love like this, just keeping his mouth shut. His mouth was occupied anyway, pressing moistly against my neck. I wondered where the fear of that almost-first time was. Everything felt natural now. Neither of us was afraid.

After a few minutes, I thought maybe he'd fallen asleep there on my shoulder; his breathing had become deep and even.

"Hey, you still with me?" I whispered.

"Mmm? Oh. Ja." I felt his smile against my neck.

He shifted as if to pull away and my hunter's reflexes awoke just in time—I grabbed his hand where it rested on my chest and held it there, feeling as his brief resistance turned into understanding. He rested against my back, motionless and ready, like prey that knows it's been spotted. Then I pulled down on his hand, gently unbalancing him, and turned to nuzzle a corner of his mouth.

And then all it took was a tiny shift of his head to make it a kiss. Now I understood—this was a dream; I'd finally gotten to sleep after all. Nothing I did now was hard, nothing I touched resisted or fought back. This was peace—all things moving together, moving with me. Kurt parted his lips to let in my tongue before I even knew I wanted him to, and the way his mouth tasted was _familiar_ , the way things in dreams are just how you imagine they'd be. I heard myself laugh a little, a laugh of sheer wonder, and he smiled back as we started to kiss deeper—I guess he was having the same dream.

I pulled his body against mine and felt the slipping of too much fabric between us, so one hand went north to push away his light cotton T-shirt while the other hand travelled south, tugging elastic over the edge of muscled hips, soft flannel floating noiselessly to his ankles. Balancing himself on my shoulders, he stepped neatly out of his pajamas and his tail, still caught in its little opening just below the waistband, flicked them carelessly away.

I guess maybe I figured he'd be embarrassed, or nervous about being naked under the windows of the rest of the team, or just plain cold. But he wasn't. I held him by the waist, my hands on those powerful obliques that framed a hard, undulant belly, and I could feel the joy his flesh felt at the touch of the air, how he arched into its caress. We were still kissing, and now my hands couldn't stay still, mapping out that territory of dark, velvety planes. Not a body like, say, Scott Summers's, with a small hard ass and broad shoulders and long, raw-boned strength. Kurt had a body that was meant to be looked at, graceful as a dancer's. No awkward bulk or reedy leanness, just gentle, sculpted curves and angles, filled out in all the right places. I took two satisfying handfuls of his ass and squeezed, then pulled upward hard, grinding his bare erection against my jeans. His blunt fingers scrabbled against my zipper and then worked their way inside.

The shock of cold air on my dick broke the trance. It suddenly hit me with a kind of teenaged panic that I was going to do something that couldn't be undone. This wasn't a dream; this wasn't me lying on my back in the dead of night jerking off to the _thought_ of Kurt's body in all its lithe, sensuous glory. He was here with me, and I was getting us both into this whether I was ready for it or not.

The flow hit a snag, like a boat grounding itself in the mud; I came awake, startled and cold, pulling back from him before I knew what I was doing. The seal of our kiss broke and two yellow eyes snapped open inches away.

He should have been angry; nobody likes being pushed away, whatever the reason. I could never have afforded to act so mixed up with anyone else. But Kurt, bless him, Kurt already knew what I was thinking. It's creepy when someone knows you so well that you don't even have to say anything for them to understand. He followed me, smiling, as I tried to pull back.

"It's okay," he said, keeping his voice low. "You don't have to worry. You can stop worrying, just for a little while."

I wasn't worried. Who was he to tell me I was worried? I was only feeling up my best friend and getting ready to turn him into an ex-lover who had once been my best friend. I'd be laying him on the sacrificial slab, changing him forever—at least to me. Like taking his virginity or something. It made me sick, and a chill bloomed in my gut—it was impossible to pull him closer without also pushing him away, far away, into that weird shadow world that lovers are a part of. A lover is a person but also not a person; they're this _thing_ that you can't help but clutch at jealously. And it's worse because they have a will of their own and can leave if they want. And you can never know their mind entirely, never understand what it is that _they_ want.

My mind raced ahead into this vision of the future—me, alone again except for my desire for _him_ , and him always just out of reach, no longer my friend. Just a stranger, forever a few steps ahead of me up the road, vanishing into the shadows.

I saw he was staring at me. He didn't look worried, just...compassionate. When he saw that I'd come back, he gave a little sigh, and his smile was sad.

"Logan," he said, "things will only go wrong if we let them. And you're not alone. You've got me. Remember?"

Looking into his eyes, those strange eyes that seemed to open onto golden, light-filled space, that horrible future I'd imagined started to fade. He was still my friend. He understood me. We could never lose each other for good. The more I studied his face—angular, beautiful, totally familiar—the less I could imagine ever seeing him as a stranger. When I took his mouth again, all I could think was how stupid I'd been to give it up in the first place.

Now I couldn't keep my hands off him, running them the wrong way through his fur so that my skin could find his, heated and soft, at the downy roots where the blue strands parted. Somehow, despite being roughly fondled and pulled every which way, he'd managed to get my jeans down to my knees, and the damp fur of his belly tickled the head of my cock. I built up the saliva in my mouth and licked my hand. His eyes hooded over as he watched my tongue scouring my skin, then he reached out quickly and grabbed my wrist, lunging for my hand with his own mouth and catching a finger between sharp teeth. He teased the uncalloused insides of my fingers with fangs as delicate and sharp as a wolf pup's milk teeth, and followed their trail with a long, clever tongue.

I had to pry my hand away from his suckling mouth to slide it, slippery with saliva, between our bodies. I took his cock in my hand first, grinding the hollow of my palm against the slick head, then giving the full length a hard, long stroke through my fist. Instantly his body surged against mine. I opened my hand to accept my cock too and felt one of his hands join in, tightening around mine as he thrust, hard, with a deep groan. His head lolled against my shoulder, chest moving hard with fast breaths.

Turning to nibble the corner of his jaw, I saw he'd let his eyes slip shut. "Hey," I whispered. "Look at me."

His eyes opened into mine and he smiled. I watched, amazed, as the beginning of the end appeared on his face and the crinkles in his brow deepened, a look of deep seriousness creeping over his sharp features. Then his eyelids fluttered shut. A tension seized his hips and then spread out, like a wave, sweeping out to his scalp and tail-tip. He gasped as though impaled, then collapsed against me with a panting groan as sticky warmth spilled over our hands.

When he opened his eyes again, he gave me a sheepish look and I nearly laughed. "Don't worry, not everyone can have my endurance."

"Sorry," he said, still panting, "I couldn't help myself."

And before I could answer, he'd slipped down my body like receding water, leaving the top of me cold as he withrew. Then a tentative warmth touched my cock and I stopped thinking for good.

He had to figure out how to do it first, and it started out slow. Furred fingers lifted then slipped behind my balls and wet heat crept up my shaft. I encouraged him with a little thrust and gradually his mouth got more confident. Then he sucked me all the way out to the tip and I groaned, way too loud, as a fuzzy palm stroked briskly over my shaft. An agile tongue swirled and traced around an eager head and I gave up trying to control myself.

He moved easily with my frantic thrusts and I came with teeth gritted, swallowing a shout. After a second he let me slip out of his mouth and rested his cheek against my hip bone, just rested there, catching his breath. I let myself lean against the marble railing and slipped my hand through his hair, then down to cup his cheek, thumb stroking the convolutions of his pointed ear. I stayed like that for a minute, fondling his head gently, wishing he'd come back up to me.

Eventually he drew himself up and snuggled in against my chest, arms squeezing my ribs. I wrapped him up tightly in my arms.

"First time you ever did that?" I asked.

I could feel his smile. "Ja."

"You did a bang-up job."

He laughed, a startled, genuine laugh, then closed his eyes and sighed contentedly. After a moment, he lifted his head, his face serious. "Do you think you can sleep now?" he asked.

I chuckled. "You bet."

"Come with me?" He pulled out of my arms reluctantly and bent to pick up his clothes.

I watched his naked form in the dim light and felt a little rustling of fear. Was he going to get the wrong idea about what had just happened? And what the hell was the right idea, come to that? Then I caught sight of his eyes again, smiling, full of love. "Yeah, I'll come with you," I replied.

Arms around each other, we tiptoed back through the house and climbed into his bed, and I slept, God bless him, I slept the whole night through, my tired head resting on his heart.

* * *

Ororo was the first to notice that anything was wrong. Other folks, they see me come home in a black mood, park myself on the back patio with all the liquor in the house and drink myself cockeyed, they don't think much of it. Just par for the course for ol' Wolvie, they say. Maybe Ororo believes that too, but it never seems to stops her.

She also considers that I'm not a guy who takes getting tanked lightly. I may rarely be without a beer in my fist, but if I'm looking to get drunk, I have to plan ahead. This particular night, after driving back to the Institute from Brooklyn, I had marched down into Hank's lab and downed enough formaldahyde to pickle Westchester. That maxed out my healing factor enough to let the liquor do its thing. A little later, out on the patio, I worked my way through all the beer, wine and spirits (including but not limited to a pint of bathtub gin Kitty had made as an experiment six months ago and some Johnny Walker Blue that Summers had been saving for a special occasion) till I was on my way to dreamland.

Drinking to soothe a broken heart always feels great at first. Your senses go numb, your thoughts slow down, and that person you're missing fades into a shadow on the wall. It's when you wake up in the morning and realize you can't spend your life doing this—though lord knows I've tried once or twice—that it all catches up with you.

That's about when 'Ro found me. I opened my eyes to the sight of her concerned face as she knelt above me, wrapped in a silk kimono. It was very early in the morning—I could tell that 'Ro had only just taken her hair down from the night before. I rolled onto my side and the stones of the patio burned me with their coldness; I shifted a little more, and my foot toppled one of many bottles, which rolled loudly for several seconds until stopped by something out of sight. 'Ro ignored the noise and continued gazing at me with compassionate, ice-blue eyes.

"Logan?" she said. "Can you hear me?"

I groaned and stretched, discovering unpleasantly that my clothes were soaked with dew. "Yeah, I can hear ya." I sat up slowly, upsetting some more bottles.

'Ro sat back on her heels, then gently touched my shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it yet?"

"No."

"Do you want some coffee?"

"Yeah."

She stood up, her hand trailing over my drenched shoulder. "Ready in five minutes," she said, opening the door. "And Logan—you'll want to dispose of that scotch bottle before Scott wakes up."

  
After going to the john to take the longest piss of my life—after all, I had the formaldahyde on top of the liquor to contend with—I stumbled back to the kitchen and Ororo's coffee. We sat at the table and drank the coffee, not talking. 'Ro is one of the best friends I've ever had, but one way she's different from Kurt is that she'll accept my silence—if I don't want to talk, she'll leave me alone. At some point I must have had this thought as we were sitting there, and it was probably followed by the realization that my whole life was going to be like this—finding little reminders of him everywhere, even in the smallest things, always catching me off guard. And these thoughts must have showed on my face somehow, because suddenly 'Ro reached across the table and laid her hand over mine where it held the coffee cup, and simply stroked my fingers for a moment, the way one strokes the head of a crying child.

Maybe it was the liquor and the dehydration catching up with me, maybe the exhaustion of having blitzed my healing factor, but for some reason I just fell apart. I dropped my head into my arms and sobbed—deep, heaving, ugly sobs that surprised me with their rawness, like they came from the body of a much larger man. 'Ro's fingers wove their way into my hair so that her nails grazed my scalp, and that gentle grazing calmed me a little. After a while, I stopped as abruptly as I'd started, a snotting, sorry mess. I wiped my face messily on my sleeve, embarrassed. I couldn't look her in the eye.

She squeezed my wrist and kept quiet.

"You're one of the few who's seen this and lived," I joked weakly, and I felt rather than saw her smile.

"It's a compliment I will always treasure."

We sat there and finished the coffee, and I tried not to sniffle like a goddamn kid. After we'd drained the pot, 'Ro got up and put some more on, then came back to the table. She looked straight at me with business in her eyes.

"So tell me, Logan: is it for love that you are like this?"

I stared at her. It was so strange to think that nobody knew—this thing between me and Kurt had been going on for months and we'd managed to keep it entirely to ourselves. So this huge thing that was happening to me now, the fact that my world was falling apart—nobody had a clue about any of it. And I wanted it to stay that way.

So I really have no idea why I told her.

"There's something you don't know about, darlin'," I began awkwardly, and I watched the curiosity bloom on her face. "We kept it a secret. Kurt and me—"

I stopped, staring at her helplessly. I didn't have the energy to keep explaining to her, and besides, I'd said all she really needed to know.

A series of reactions chased their way across her face: shock, followed by wonder, and then compassion. She reached across the table and took both my hands. It had been no secret in the mansion that Kurt had left for a life of celibacy.

"I'm sorry."

"This stays between us," I said, and she nodded her assent quickly.

"Of course. I wouldn't tell a soul."

The percolator switched off, and she got up to get the coffee. When she sat back down, she asked, pouring, "You have talked to him?"

"Yeah. Yesterday. Didn't go well."

She nodded, setting down the coffee pot.

"Gonna try again, though."

She looked up. "Are you sure that's wise?"

"Don't care if it's wise. Have to, 'Ro."

"But what about him?"

"What _about_ him?"

"Logan, this can't be easy for him, either. He has made his decision; perhaps it would be best for both your health and his if you simply respected it."

I shook my head, more violently than I'd intended. "Can't do that, 'Ro."

"Then you must know that you'll be hurting him."

"Maybe; and I'm sorry for that. But that's the way it is."

Her gaze was no longer quite as compassionate as it had been before. "Look, 'Ro," I growled, unnerved by her disapproval, "what he did was _wrong_. It was the wrong decision, and I'm gonna show him that, gonna change his mind."

She shook her head sadly. "You know that's not true."

"What?"

"In your heart, you know you've lost him for good. Why else would you be in this state? What you want is to punish him for hurting you. And I urge you not to do that."

I stared at her for a long, tense moment, hating her. Then I stood up, pushed the chair away hard, and left her sitting there, ignoring the sting of her sad gaze on my back.

* * *

It was late summer, and already I could smell the season changing. Another couple of weeks and Jubilee would be going back to Massachusetts, the first flocks of birds going south would start appearing overhead, and the nights would get too chilly to have sex by the pool. I drained the last of a beer and used the empty bottle to tap one of its mates still standing upright in the sixpack.

"Want another?"

Kurt smiled and reached for the bottle I'd tapped. I watched the sunlight pick out ribbons of brilliant blue across his dark fur as he tipped his head back, neck stretching out sinuously, eyes slitting against the sun, to take a first swig.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?"

He took the bottle from his lips and looked at me, eyes all yellow innocence. "Since what?"

"Since we last had, y'know...a roll in the hay."

He smiled mischievously and looked away. It had been six weeks since our first late-night encounter on the back patio, and there was no sign of this thing we'd let loose between us letting up in its force. When we met secretly, late at night in his room or sometimes in mine, or in some other hidden corner of the Institute's vast estate, it was always with the same urgency and intense thrill of that first night, that drunkenness with the new and the dangerous. I've faced enough physical danger in my day that it's become downright monotonous, but Kurt's body, with its weird beauty that's both alien and deliciously human, never stopped being an adventure for me.

"Has it been so long? Well, I guess we'll have to do something about that," he said, coyly taking another swig of beer.

"Tonight?" I asked, sounding a little too much like an eager kid trying to get himself laid.

"Where?" he countered.

"Let's do it out here. Summer will be gone soon."

"So it will indeed."

He inhaled deeply, like he was trying to savor the last of the summer right then and there, and then returned to his contented basking, apparently having had enough of our little erotic teasing for now. We were stretched out on the concrete deck by the pool, and a sixpack of beer between us was nearly gone. Behind us, the lawn was quiet and still, the air heavy with sun-warmed grass laced by an occasional draft of cool chlorine smell from the pool. The rich, ripe smell of the lawn was like the ripeness of summer itself, almost ready to drop from the branch. The only sound was the rhythmic splashing of a lone swimmer in the pool—Rogue, relentless and stubbornly alone, doing laps.

She hadn't heard a word of our exchange. She was too intent on her swimming regimen, which she attacked every afternoon single-mindedly. These days she only ever seemed to swim by herself, and naturally that bothered Kurt, determined as he was to thwart anyone's attempts to develop a loner habit or two. So we were keeping her company, even though she'd barely taken her head out of the water for the last half hour. I watched her as she approached our end of the pool, executed another flip turn, and shot back down toward the other end. I turned then to Kurt and slipped my hand around his waist, and before he could defend himself, I had him pinned to the concrete in a deep kiss.

He immediately struggled out of my arms (as I'd expected him to) and the stern look he fixed me with almost made me laugh. A bit of under-the-breath teasing was usually as far as Kurt was willing to go if it was at all possible that anyone was watching or listening. "She'll see us!" he whispered loudly, tossing his head toward our tireless swimmer.

I grinned and crawled closer to him. "She's barely paused the whole time." I reached out to caress one velvety knee. "We're as good as alone..."

His stern look relaxed a little, and he allowed me to run my hand up the inside of his bare leg. A warning glance halted me, though, as I reached mid-thigh.

"Don't be so uptight," I grumbled as I stretched out on my stomach, planting a kiss on his shoulder as I passed by.

"Me? Uptight?" I heard him say behind me, the grin obvious in his voice. Something tickled the back of my leg through my jeans and then slid up the space between my legs. There's definitely something to be said for the experience of being goosed by a tail, not least because of the sheer surprise of it—even if it's something that happens to you frequently.

"Careful," I growled, turning my head slightly. "Don't start anything you don't intend to finish."

Point taken, evidently, the tail removed itself. Then, a long, lithe body stretched out alongside mine, feet toward my head, and a contented sigh drifted back to me. I let my hand curl around one sturdy blue ankle—so strange, the way it was nearly human but not quite—while the tail reappeared to stroke lazily up and down the outside of my leg. I wondered absently, now that I could see the mansion's dark windows from where I lay, whether anyone looking out at us from the house would be able to tell that there was anything between us—assuming, of course, that they'd missed the kiss. Or did we look just like we'd always looked—like two best buddies, closer than brothers, who maybe, just maybe, secretly wanted to fuck each other—but a secret wish doesn't count for squat, since everyone's got a couple they'd rather not own up to. Nearby, the monotonous splashing of Rogue's laps continued, telegraphing its loneliness into the heavy late summer air.

Making sure that my back was to the house, I rolled carefully onto one side just as Kurt's tail was sweeping up my leg. He was propped up on his elbows and his eyes met mine as the tail brushed over the front of my jeans, then paused and brushed over it again. Throwing a glance toward the pool, I slowly undid the button and eased down the zipper. Kurt looked nervously from side to side, tail tip twitching next to my leg. Then his eyes returned to mine and he favored me with a wicked smile as the tail slipped inside my pants. I gazed at him, a little breathless, eyes raking down his dark body glistening like a seal's in the sunlight, and then back up to his face with its burning, otherworldly eyes.

And at that moment, for the first time, I saw him as a _thing—_ a beautiful, shadow-colored thing, filled with light. And I wondered if I could ever get far enough inside of him, if I could ever fuck him deep enough or taste him fully enough, to touch the center of that light. My cock was hard now from all the rustling of that tail inside my shorts, which with a few more rustles had coiled around me like a snake. Kurt parted his lips slightly, tongue tip flickering behind sharp teeth, as he gave me one long, gentle stroke.

My elbow buckled and I let my head sink to the ground with a groan. He smiled again, raising a finger to his lips in a silent warning, then gave me another stroke, letting the coils of his tail slip and tighten, then slip again. We were lying close enough together that anyone would have to be nearly on top of us to see what was going on. I suddenly imagined Summers or Gumbo walking by, on their way to the boat house, maybe, and continuing on their way without giving us more than a casual glance, oblivious. Why that got me even hotter I'll never know, but within seconds I was on the edge. I reached out blindly for some part of him and ended up sinking my clawing fingers into the back of his thigh as I began to come, clenching my teeth hard to stifle my cry. When I came back to myself he had sat up and was stroking my face, drawing his fingers through my side whiskers, tracing the lines of wear and weather on my skin.

I looked at him, so beautiful in the late afternoon sun, and felt the need to say something welling in my chest. What came out was, "God I wanna fuck you," but I think he understood—I uttered those words with as much reverence as it's possible to utter them. He replied with that same sphinxlike smile and whispered, "Later." In another twenty minutes, Rogue had finished her laps, and the three of us went inside to dress for dinner.

  
 _"—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,  
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not  
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither  
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,  
Looking into the heart of light, the silence."_

T.S. Eliot, "The Waste Land"

* * *

Like before, I didn't go to him immediately. I knew that I had to wait a little while—don't know why, exactly; just call it hunter's instinct. As I've said, any good hunter knows about waiting. He knows waiting isn't wasting time, because there might be a payoff at the end. If he fails, he's bound to look back on the wait as so much squandered time, and he's liable to feel a little bitter about it. But at the beginning of the wait, he's got hope, and it keeps him going, makes the idle time mean something.

I knew I had to give him time—time to miss me, maybe, or time to think about what I'd said to him. Time to let down his guard. In the meanwhile, I tried to stay away from the mansion as much as possible—I couldn't stand the guilt I felt whenever Ororo was around, and I was starting to get paranoid that the others knew now. And for reasons I couldn't name, I hated the thought of Jeannie finding out particularly. I could see it happening—she'd be worried about me, and 'Ro wouldn't mean to betray my confidence, she'd just let it slip. Or maybe Jean or one of the other telepaths would figure it out for themselves. Of course, me and Kurt had kept it from the telepaths for months, but for some reason, pain is louder than pleasure to them. At any rate, it was only a matter of time, and I didn't want to be around when it happened.

I gave him two weeks. Then, unwilling to waste another second, I went back.

Sitting again in the converted living room of that brownstone seminary, I listened to the bespectacled receptionist tell me that Kurt was in the chapel. I quickly followed her directions there, but hesitated on the threshold—this was his sanctuary I was entering, and I knew instinctively that he wouldn't want me there. It was possible that an invasion like this could turn him against me. But that was a risk I had to take. I had to force myself in somehow; that was the only way I was going to pry him loose from this place. I needed to show him that there was nowhere to hide.

It was dark inside, and warmer than I'd expected—it was a small school chapel in a converted residential building, after all—and it smelled of paper and stale incense. I saw Kurt kneeling in the second pew, all the way over to the right. He was holding a small book, but he wasn't reading it—he clutched it between clasped hands like a talisman, his head bowed and his eyes shut. He didn't look up even after I'd shut the door, so I had a seat in the back and waited for him to finish. I've known enough religious types to know that interrupting someone during prayer is generally a bad idea, especially when you're trying to win them over. I might have been invading his church, but I wanted it to be a courteous invasion, one that he couldn't rightly object to.

After a while, he took a deep breath, then lifted his head and stood slowly, putting the little book back in his pocket. He turned toward me casually, having already sensed my presence, but froze as soon as he recognized who I was.

"Logan," he said, with half-concealed dismay.

"Can we talk in here, or should we go outside?"

"Let's go outside," he said, coming cautiously up the aisle. I rose to meet him, but he passed without looking at me, opening the door and gesturing me out.

There was a wooden bench in the hall outside, which I sat down on. Kurt sat beside me, again putting a polite amount of distance between us like he had the first time I'd visited. "So," he said, rubbing his knees anxiously, "what can I do for you, Logan?"

"Nothing," I said, all innocence. "Just thought I'd stop by and say hello."

He ventured an uneasy glance, obviously not believing me.

"So, um, how have you been?" he asked.

"Oh, you know—some days are better than others. How's about you?"

"I'm fine. Studying, mostly."

I nodded, smiling blandly. It was already the most strained conversation we'd ever had, and yet I found myself enjoying his uneasiness. I _wanted_ this to be awkward. The day he could be at ease around me was the day I'd know he'd gotten me out of his system, and I couldn't let that happen. As long as he was sweating, I knew I had a chance.

"Actually, there is something you can do for me, Kurt," I said calmly.

He threw me a glance of utter dread.

"You can answer a question for me, point-blank. Can you do that, Kurt?"

"Well, I don't know..."

"It's just a question, Kurt. I'm only asking for you to be honest with me. Don't I at least deserve a little honesty?"

He nodded, swallowing.

"Okay then. Tell me truthfully: are you happier now than you ever were with me?"

He drooped and said nothing, and silently I rejoiced; I had a chance as long as he couldn't manage a simple 'yes' to that question. Then he spoke:

"I am happy to know that I am doing what is right."

"Yeah, but are you happier than you were before you left me? Just tell me 'yes' or 'no', Kurt."

Again he said nothing.

I kept at him. "When you wake up in the morning, are you happier to be alive now than you were when you woke up all those other mornings in my bed? Just answer the question, Kurt. Yes or no?"

"I—I can't answer. I don't know." He sighed shakily, raising his head, then fixed me with a look that begged me to understand him. "I was happy with you, Logan. I loved the time I spent with you. But it is over, and my life is very different now. Everything is different, even the way happiness feels is different. It is—a different kind of happiness, you might say."

"Nice try, Elf. But that's still not an answer."

"Then I'm afraid you'll have to live without your answer."

Maybe it was the callous, dismissive way he said it, but for some reason that last remark blasted all my patience. I forgot everything I knew about hunting and let loose with my frustration.

"Damnit, Kurt! You walk out on me without any warning, you leave me with nothing, and when all I ask for is an answer to a simple question, you can't even spare me that?"

"It's not a 'simple' question and you know it, Logan." His voice was drawn tight, like the string of a bow.

"Yeah, okay. Maybe I'm trying to trick you into admitting something. Maybe I got a motive here. But for pete's sake, pal, what do you expect? You might be happy as a clam here in your new life, but I don't get a new life. I'm still stuck being in love with you while you get to leave everything behind."

He stared at his feet glumly.

"Did you hear me? I said I _love_ —"

"No, you don't."

I stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

"Logan," he sighed, "what is between us is not love. It is...intense and powerful, but it isn't love."

I was suddenly a lot angrier. "Who are you to decide what it is I feel?"

He shook his head. "I don't doubt that you care a great deal about me, Logan." He paused, looking off into nothing, then laughed sadly like he was remembering something. "For my whole adult life you have been my best friend," he went on. "And I don't doubt that you like my body. But love—the kind of love that makes two people one flesh—is more than just those two things combined."

I stood up, beyond anger by this point. "I don't just 'like your body,' Kurt," I snarled. "You think that's what attraction is, just liking what you see enough to have a crack at it? I love all of you—your body turns me on because it's _yours_ , because it's _you_. I want the whole package, Kurt, not just a pal to play pool with and a warm body to roll around with. Jesus, Kurt, I want _you_ , I want everything about you. Now tell me, what is that if it ain't love?"

He was silent.

"So what are we missing?" I asked. "What's the magic ingredient that we ain't got?"

He hung his head wearily. "I don't know. But I think it...it has something to do with God."

I narrowed my eyes. Him again, that Bastard.

"So," I continued, "we can't love each other because I don't share your god? Well, what about Amanda? Didn't you love her?"

He frowned, averting his face sheepishly. "I'm beginning to think I—didn't, no. We were very close, Logan, almost as close as you and I—" he looked at me as he said this, perhaps thinking it would appease me "—but it was not a love that lasted. It wasn't love, no."

"Then I guess I just don't understand." I sat down again heavily. "What does God have to do with any of it? Why can't we just be two people who have their differences but can see past 'em? Why can't we just be two goddamn _people?_ "

"I'm sorry." Kurt shook his head sadly and looked away. "I don't have any answers for you. But I've made my decision already and you won't be able to change it."

"What, you think that gets you off the hook? If you don't have the answers then get them! Least you can leave me with is some goddamn answers! Why can't we be together, Kurt? Why did you throw me over for God?"

By the end I was standing and shouting; Kurt had shrunk back a little and was looking at me the way people always do when they think I'm going to snap. I had a funny little feeling then. That nervous look in his eyes, that _something_ that looked an awful lot like fear—I was plenty familiar with that something. I'd seen it in hundreds of eyes before, always at the same moment. Right just then, Kurt wasn't this all-important, all-consuming thing to me—he was just another enemy suddenly realizing that he was outmatched, and trying to think of the quickest way out of there. I knew what fear looked like. And I knew how to make people fear _me_. Maybe I couldn't get to him with love anymore, but I had other ways.

Confidence rushed through me, suffusing my body with warmth, like liquor. Muscles and senses came to life like a dark land touched by the sun. It felt good—no, incredible. A nasty, teeth-baring little thought reminded me that this was the first pleasure I'd felt in months. I felt myself filling the room, impossibly strong, indestructible. And I knew what I looked like to Kurt—I could hear the liquid crinkling of his capillaries constricting as his automatic fear response kicked in. I could smell his blood. My body sang with excitement at that smell; my mouth watered, my claws itched under my skin.

And then a small, bitter laugh inside me froze my blood. I remembered what I had just been saying, not five minutes ago. How I loved all of him. How I wanted everything about him. It was all lies. What kind of love was it that could turn into—this? I didn't give a shit about him, about what he wanted. All I cared about was having him, one way or another—dead or alive, as long as he was _mine_.

And just as simple as that, I saw myself killing him. I knew as surely as I know myself that it could happen—all it would take was one little nudge over the edge. And I knew it would feel good, at least in that moment. At least as good as those other pure, still moments, when I was inside of him and I suddenly saw all time fit into the space of a breath.

I turned, terrified of myself and of him, and ran for the door.

  
 _"...I have heard the key  
Turn in the door once and turn once only  
We think of the key, each in his prison  
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison..."_

T.S. Eliot, "The Waste Land"

* * *

Why Kurt undid me like he did, I'll never know. Lord knows I've been in love before, and I've loved and lost before, too. Hell, I've never had a love affair that _didn't_ ended in death or desolation. But always before, even when the end hurt like a bitch, at least it had made a little bit of sense. After Mariko died, I cursed the universe up and down, but you can only shake your fist at death for so long. I knew what I had to do: move on, learn to forget—at least a little.

Even with Jean, there'd been a difference. Oh, Jean—I've lost her more times than I can recall, and I'll be goddamned if it didn't break my heart each and every time. But even the toughest time of all—when I finally had to admit that there was another man she was always going to love more than me—resolved itself in my heart after a while. She didn't love me—never had, and never would. End of story.

Jean, Mariko, Silver Fox—I never stopped loving any of them, ever. But I kept going. There wasn't anything else to do.

But with Kurt, there was no clear path. Far as I could reckon, he still loved me, and I sure still loved him. I hadn't treated him wrong, and things had never gotten cold between us—tense maybe, awkward, but never cold. So what happened? He left me for God, that's what.

And what the hell was God, anyway? Just some superstitious nonsense—all well and good when it was just a hobby that took up Kurt's Sunday mornings, but as something that he'd choose over me? That's where I stopped understanding. It was ridiculous, it was stupid. There was no reason for it, no reason I ought to accept it.

And that's what kept me from letting go—knowing how pointless it was, knowing that it _should_ be different. Being a veteran of lost love myself, it was that much more of an outrage, because here was a loss that didn't have to be. All that stood between me and Kurt was some silly superstition; how could that flimsy little thing keep us apart? It wasn't fair, and it wasn't right. Again and again, I threw myself against that paper-thin barrier; the damn thing was stronger than it looked. But I kept trying; guess I never could take a hint.

* * *

  
Ever since the first morning I woke up in bed with him, I'd been dreading the time when we'd have to go to work together—when we'd find out, ready or not, just how big the gap _was_ between lover and friend when it came to a fight. Of course, worrying about him was nothing new. Compared to most of the other X-Men, Kurt was like a snail out of its shell—no healing factor, no major offensive powers, just the ability to get out of the way real quick. Plus he had a reckless streak—he'd grown up a lot since he first started with the X-Men, but occasionally he still tried something stupid. One of those stunts almost killed him in the Morlock tunnels, and I spent six months blaming myself for it. It was a secret fear of mine that one day he'd try to be a hero and I wouldn't be fast enough to pick up where his luck ran out.

So how much worse would it be, now that we were as intimate as two people could get? The thought of losing him ate at my confidence; I knew it would take extra resolve to force down that irrational protectiveness I'd feel for his body, so newly precious to me, and focus on doing my job.

The time came when we joined Cyclops and Rogue on a trip to North Dakota to take care of an anti-mutant militia. Nothing serious—we were outnumbered twenty to one, but they were just ordinary guys with guns, and we were more than ready for them. That's the funny thing about guns, though—when you're a superpowered mutant, it's easy to get cocky about human weapons. Hell, me and Rogue could take bullets to the chest and not even break our stride. But if you're not invulnerable, all the mutant powers in the world can't save you if you don't see the guy's finger on the trigger. And that's nearly what happened to Kurt.

Our plan was to disarm and scatter them, then let the federal marshalls clean up afterward. Kurt had easily neutralized thirty men or so, but as usual, he was going for speed over caution, and one 'port brought him straight to the business end of a .44. I saw the hammer drop just as Kurt's eyes went wide; I didn't have time to shout.

The signature cloud of pink vapor appeared in two halves, like it had been sliced with a knife; my heart dropped into my stomach and I waited one of the longer seconds of my life to see if the shot had hit him.

He reappeared about a hundred yards away, behind cover, and as I ran toward him, I could see he was on his knees, doubled over. I felt my flesh go cold and I ran faster.

When I got to him, he was gasping for breath and shaking like a leaf, but there was no blood. Later on, we concluded that the bullet must have coincided with his teleport in a funny way so that he felt some but not all of its impact; he'd been "dimensionally grazed," as Hank later put it. That was Kurt's luck for you—as if all his close shaves weren't enough, he had to go and invent a way for an even closer one.

That didn't mean he got away without a scratch. The effect of that shot was like a mule's kick to the solar plexus. The wind had been knocked clean out of him; lucky for us that it had happened just as things were wrapping up. Of course, by the time we regrouped with Summers and Rogue, he could stand and walk on his own, and once we were back in Westchester he was already protesting Hank's orders for a full checkover.

I sat in the medlab for the whole thing, still worried that Hank might find massive internal bleeding or some hidden horror like that—and I stayed on the edge of my seat until Hank announced a clean bill of health. As soon as Kurt and I were out in the corridor, I wrapped my arm around him and buried my face in his neck.

"Yer gonna be the death of me, darlin'," I murmured, kissing him below his ear.

"Logan, it was nothing. Just a hard punch to the gut. Stop fussing."

I chuckled. "I'm not fussing."

"You are. And you're making me feel like a child."

I lifted my head from his shoulder and looked at him. He wasn't kidding, I realized. That note of real bitterness in his voice sounded in the pit of my stomach, and my arm around him stiffened.

"Look," I said, snapping out of my recent tenderness, "I was just worried about ya! In case you hadn't noticed, I'm nuts about you." I watched with satisfaction as his face fell a bit. "And anyway," I muttered, looking away from him, "maybe I wouldn't _have_ to worry so goddamn much if you didn't always get yerself in these scrapes in the first place!"

I waited for him to defend himself—it was the kind of jab I gave him all the time, but the rules for that and everything else seemed to be changing. Instead of matching my challenge, though, he sighed contritely and said, "I know. I'm sorry. You were only being...my friend."

"Yeah. Well." I puffed a little, happy with the victory. "Just be more careful next time, okay?"

He nodded, eyes fixed on the floor. I leaned into his neck again and kissed him a little more urgently, letting my hand slip down his back to rest low on his hip. "Whadd'ya say we spend the night makin' it up to each other?"

"I don't know," he said through another tired sigh. "I'm a little worn out after today."

"Oh, c'mon." I nuzzled the side of his face. "Almost lost you today. Need to hold you, make sure you're real..."

"I'm just a little shaken up, Logan...I just want to sleep."

"Then sleep with _me_."

"Logan..." He pulled gently away from me. "I'm sorry." He gave me a wan, guilty smile. "I'd just rather be alone." After leaning in for a light kiss on the lips, he turned and headed for the stairs.

I stood still, watching him disappear up the steps. I was numb—wasn't sure if it was the numbness you feel right after being slapped, or just...nothing. Could I even say what had happened? One moment, I was relieved to be holding him safe and sound, and the next, he was gone. Dazed, I wandered up the stairs after him, suddenly worn out as well, wanting nothing except for my body to be horizontal, and my head to be empty.

  
Searing spots of sunlight shone between the curtains. I kicked the covers off my legs and groaned, slipping my hand past the elastic of my shorts, knowing vaguely that I ought to be disgusted with myself. I closed my eyes and remembered how the hairless skin of his nipple felt under my lips and a rush of heat at my groin made my back arch—my hand closed reflexively around my cock as more details of his body crowded into my head.

One night away from him and I was on fire. And without him there, I could have him however I wanted him. I jerked my cock hard, imagining it was him between my legs, crouching at my knees, giving me just what I wanted. I was fucking his mouth with long, slow strokes, hands knotted in his silky hair, holding him, controlling him, maybe even forcing him a little. Then I was holding him tighter, grinding his face into my crotch, jamming my cock down his throat, too hard, too fast _not_ to be hurting him.

Afterwards, I lay sprawled on my back, sticky, ashamed. What had he been doing that whole time, while I'd been using him in my head like some whore? Sleeping? Reading the paper? Praying? That last one almost made me laugh, horrified with myself. I remembered that, a split-second after I came, I'd had a sudden vision of his nude body, lying crushed and bloody in the dust somewhere in North Dakota. It was enough to make a man never touch himself again.

  
I didn't see much of him that day. It was hard to say whether he was avoiding me, or whether I was avoiding him, but it worked out the same. When our paths did cross, I couldn't look him in the eye. He seemed a bit cool toward me, but maybe that was my guilt talking. Or maybe he was just preoccupied, still troubled over what had happened the day before.

I was itching to get out of the house, but the force of unresolved conflict kept me tied to it—like a ghost, I thought unhappily. Stuck there, haunting the halls, not even blessed with the presence of the person trapping me there.

This wasn't life. This wasn't the way things ought to be between two people who cared about each other—and Kurt had been a friend and a brother long before he'd been a lover. Nothing like this would ever have happened then, before this strange force had infected and electrified our bond. I knew I was being an idiot, letting my dick get in the way of thinking clearly—and if I didn't get a grip, I was going to lose him. As a lover _and_ a friend.

For the first time that day, I actively sought him out. I found him and Kitty slumped against the wall in an upstairs hallway, talking and laughing together quietly. I went straight up to them and hauled Kurt to his feet.

"Logan!" He glanced apprehensively between me and Kitty. "What's going on?"

"We have to go to Harry's, Elf."

"Why? Is Harry being attacked by supervillains? Or is he giving it away on the house?"

"Because we haven't gone to Harry's—me an' you together—in almost four months, and that's an outrage."

"I need to do some reading, anyway," said Kitty, sticking her head between us. "Have fun, guys." She made for the wall and vanished into it.

Finally alone together, we glanced at each other anxiously. "I suppose we _could_ use a night out together, the way we _used_ to..." he said.

"Yeah. We've been cooped up too long. Let's get some fresh air."

  
"Turn the flamin' thing off," I growled, rocking back in my chair impatiently.

"Logan, please...I just want to have a quiet, pleasant night out for once, no trouble, no fights..."

"Hey, Harry!"

Harry looked up without stopping his rag's slow circles on the bar counter.

"Can he turn it off?"

Harry shrugged and looked back down. "Son can do whatever he wants—just as long as you two are financially responsible for whatever happens next."

"You hear that, Logan?" said Kurt, somewhere between amused and annoyed. "We're both broke. And the professor has put his foot down on financing bar brawls from now on, remember?"

"What makes you think there'll be a brawl?" I grinned. "There's barely anyone in here. C'mon—you get us two more beers and I'll set up the rack, all right?"

I caught sight of his helpless glare as I turned toward the pool table.

Nobody was playing, of course—it was friggin' Wednesday night in Westchester—and I had the balls racked and two cues rustled up by the time Kurt came over with the beers.

"You haven't turned it off yet," I said, handing him a cue.

He muttered something unintelligible, and reached into his jeans pocket. Then the unremarkable, WASPy-looking kid wavered and blinked out to reveal a piece of shadow in a man's shape.

"Much better," I purred, looking him up and down.

He hesitantly picked up his beer, glancing nervously from side to side. I saw over his shoulder as a drunk at the bar did a double take at Kurt, then went back to his drink. The few scattered people in the place, mostly toward the front, hadn't even noticed Kurt, engrossed in their quiet chatter.

I smiled at him. "See? Not so bad, huh? Now—you break."

Still nervous, he picked up his cue and bent to aim his shot. I stood back, a little behind him, appraising his graceful figure as his long limbs extended themselves to bring him closer to the table.

His first shot sank two balls, and then he proceeded to make three more good shots before missing. I took up my cue and got down to business.

By eleven-thirty, we were two games for two, and I was beating him in the fifth. We were both pretty rusty—probably 'cause the only thing we did anymore was screw—and it felt good just to be around him like this, talking shit and drinking—and with the game set squarely between us to keep our hands off each other.

I smelled her before I saw her, and she lingered casually at the edge of my awareness long before she spoke. I had just sunk the eight ball with an elegant bank shot when I heard her voice at my elbow, deep and appreciative:

"So, I figure you boys must be mutants."

I could practically feel Kurt bristle all the way across the table, but I turned and saw the woman smiling, her lopsided smile a half-apology for the fighting words she could have meant.

She wasn't young; but she wasn't old, either—her smell had that ambiguous, layered quality that my own smell has, the smell of experience. She held herself like someone looking for a fight, too, but her body was soft in all the right places—round, heavy breasts filling out a pleated blouse, wide hips stretching taut the well-worn denim. Her throat and chest, bared for inspection, were smooth and golden; her hair, bleached a little too much at the tips, smelled like hay and honey. Teeth glinted as her smile widened slightly; she saw how my eyes were wandering.

And it hit me, in a lush moment of clarity, how long it had been since I'd touched or even really looked at a woman. I was engrossed by every little fluid movement her body made, how the absence of angles in her woman's body made movement quieter somehow, more continuous.

"Yeah," I said, my voice a little husky, "we're mutants. What's it to you, darlin'?"

"Oh, I don't care," she said, suddenly stepping back and away. She grabbed a pool cue that was leaning against the wall and slowly came back over to me. "I've just always wondered if being a mutant made someone good at pool."

I glanced over at Kurt, whose glared back at me stone-faced, then turned back to her and shrugged. "We do all right," I said. "Maybe you'd like to find out for yerself."

She nodded, her full lips still curved in that slightly crooked smile. "Which one of you should I try out first?"

"Well, I'm the winner from the last round," I offered quickly. "Think I can give you a run for yer money."

"We'll see." She put down the cue and began setting up the rack. I watched her move, amazed at how free of lines she was, how everything she did was just the shifting and flowing of shape. She didn't so much wear her clothes as animate them, and every time she bent over the table, a strip of flesh shone golden between the top of her low-slung jeans and the bottom of her blouse, soft and suggestive. When she was done, I came back to myself only just in time to start the game, sorry to leave that feminine dream behind.

The woman was good—surprisingly good. "Where'd you learn these tricks, darlin'?" I teased her as I reclaimed the table, after she had finally missed a shot.

"Playing in bars just like these. Darlin'." A sharp puff of breath was the sound of her laugh as my shot went slightly wide.

She bent to plan her next shot and I ventured another glance over at Kurt. By now he was even further back from the action, sitting on a stool with his arms folded, stiff and uncomfortable-looking. I saw how his eyes followed the woman in the same way mine had, though, and his face was confused, almost forlorn. I knew with certainty that if our eyes happened to meet, I would get a cold, accusing glare, so I was careful to only look at him for so long.

Her shot was risky, and too much force made the cue ball go wild. The ricochet sent it straight into a corner pocket.

"Well," I purred, "that's game, I guess."

She frowned. "Not fair, mister. This was supposed to be a test for _you_ , not me."

"What can I say?" I directed a wolfish grin at her. "You didn't set the bar high enough."

"Hmmm. Well." Her green-gold eyes narrowed and a crease appeared on her brow. "Maybe," she said, her smile suddenly widening, "I should give your friend a try, then. Maybe you were just warming him up before."

Kurt blinked and quickly unfolded his arms. "Uh, I—no, thank you." I permitted myself a chuckle as his carefully-maintained aloofness slipped a little at her sudden attention.

"Oh, come on," she said, sidling over to him. "I know you've got it. Win or lose, honey, your drink's on me. How 'bout that?"

He gave me a helpless look and I winked at him. "Okay," he said, turning to her with a hesitant but genuine smile, "let's go."

The woman—name of Sammy, she informed us—beat Kurt squarely after a long, close game. She bought him not one but two beers, pressed up close against him to give him pointers on his shots, and generally made him forget little by little that he was supposed to be jealous. The longer the game went on, the clearer it became that Sammy was quite the little pool hustler—maybe she'd even have beaten me if she'd been giving it her all.

"So how'd you get so good?" I asked from my stool as Sammy knocked the eight ball neatly into a corner pocket.

"Well," she said, straightening up, "you hang around in places like these for most of your life, you're bound to pick up a skill or two."

"Or two, huh? What's the other one?"

She stepped up behind Kurt to run her hands over his shoulders and down his bare arms—but her languid smile was all for me. Kurt stiffened a bit in surprise, unsure about how to react—and about why she was making eyes at me when _he_ was the one she was touching. I looked past his confused expression and smiled back at her. "I see. Well, that's real interesting, darlin'."

She continued to stroke Kurt's arms, and by now he was looking down at the floor, embarrassed. I suddenly had a vision of the two of them together, naked, making love—and making love to me. Warmth crept up my body as I saw her pliant, pale flesh against his hard, velvety limbs—and Jesus, what I wouldn't have given to be crushed between them, unable to make up my mind which kind of beauty was better.

Sammy had moved so that she was right between me and Kurt, her roving touch searching out both of us. "I don't suppose you boys would be interested in coming back with me for a nightcap when this place closes, would you?"

I grinned in spite of myself, idiotically. Then I remembered Kurt, and found him looking straight at me. I gave him a small nod. He returned it with a sharp shake of his head, his eyes icy and narrowed. I scowled at him.

"Well," I heard myself say, "I don't know about Kurt here, but I'm sure up for it."

Kurt continued to lock his gaze with mine. He looked like he was imagining my slow and painful dismemberment.

Whatever guilt I felt about that was drowned out by my anger. The way I saw it, this woman had just offered us a chance to make things right between us—I couldn't put my finger on _why_ fucking both of them would have solved things in my mind, but I was sure that it would have. But Kurt, as usual, had decided not to see things my way. I wondered, when he'd told me months ago on that first night that I didn't have to worry, and that I'd always have him, whether he'd ever imagined a scenario like this. Where was he now, when I was so sure of things and all I needed was his blessing?

"Sure you don't wanna come, honey?" Sammy brushed her fingers over Kurt's arm in a final attempt, clearly disappointed by his aloofness.

"No, thank you," he said, his voice chilly. "I'm a little...tired."

I hated him for being like this. I was already so turned on by the thought of screwing both of them that I wasn't sure Sammy alone was going to do it for me tonight, alluring though she was. But I wasn't going to beg him for it. I had a feeling she'd find a way to make me forget him for a little while.

"Okay, Elf," I said, fishing my keys out of my pocket and tossing them to him. "You can take the bike back. Just be careful with it."

The look of utter betrayal he gave me almost made me falter. But I steeled myself; we'd made our offer, it had been fair, and he'd rejected it. If he felt humiliated, it was his own damn fault, and I wasn't going to let him manipulate me with guilt over something he'd brought on himself. If he wanted to go home alone tonight instead of being with me, well, that was fine.

"See ya tomorrow, Elf," I said, slipping my hand around Sammy's waist and guiding her toward the door. I didn't dare look back at him as we left.

  
It turned out Sammy didn't have too much trouble helping me get over my disappointment. She was a talented lady, that Sammy. We drove back to her apartment in her '79 Chevy truck, her with both hands on the wheel and me with one hand in her pants and another up her blouse. We stumbled up the steps and through her door like some awkward, four-legged animal, and the second the latch clicked shut I had her shirt off and her jeans down to her knees. My hand fumbling in the hot space between her thighs found her panties soaked through, and my mouth dampened the well-worn lace of her bra as it searched for the shape of her nipple. I scrambled to get rid of my jeans while my fingers worked their way around her panties to find the slippery folds of her pussy, and not a second too soon I sank my cock inside, pressing her back hard against the door. After a few clumsy thrusts, the world upended itself and suddenly she was on top, riding me hard and freeing those beautiful tits from her bra with one hand while the other knotted itself firmly in a clump of my chest hair. I clamped my hands over her breasts and stared at them there, big and rough and dark against her skin.

I came soon, and hard, and then we did it again. We worked our way from one room to another, ending up eventually in her bedroom, fucking shamelessly against the frame of a big bay window.

Afterwards, I lay on my back on her unmade bed, drifting near sleep, while she sat beside me, rolling a joint.

"It's too bad your friend couldn't join us." There was the sound of a flint catching as she lit the joint. "Could've been interesting."

"Wasn't I interesting enough for ya, darlin'?" I rumbled without opening my eyes.

"Oh, no offense, honey. I could tell you wanted him to come, too."

I paused, not wanting to talk about him with the girl who was supposed to be keeping my mind off him. "Just didn't want there to be bad blood, is all," I said at last.

"Is he your boyfriend?"

My eyes opened. "What?"

She handed me the joint. "Oh, don't play dumb. I could tell by the way you were looking at him all night."

I exhaled my hit irritably. There were always those women who thought one little fuck was enough to make all your business public record. "So now you're the expert on me, huh?"

"Well, is it true or not? You guys doin' it?"

"Yeah." I glared at her, strangely relieved to have confessed it—she was the first one to know, I realized. "Stop lookin' so pleased with yerself."

She shrugged innocently and took back the joint. She was leaning up against the headboard, legs folded in front of her indian-style, still completely naked. "I just hope I didn't get in the middle of anything," she said.

I gave a dry laugh. "Oh, you got in the middle of something all right. You knew it while you were doin' it."

"Okay, maybe. But I hope I didn't screw anything up for you."

"That's awful kind of you."

She turned to me with a scowl. "You know, you really got a helluva chip on your shoulder, mister," she said. "Were you using me to make him jealous or something?"

"'Coure not. He probably thinks so, though."

"And you're not gonna correct him. Amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?"

I growled at her, showing my teeth. "This yer idea of pillow talk?"

"Okay, okay," she said, waving the joint. "It's none of my business anyhow. But listen"—she passed the joint back to me—"you should probably get back to him, and I can't get to sleep with someone else in the bed."

I turned to her with a surprised grin. "You kickin' me out?"

She shrugged. "Or you could take the couch, your choice."

I took a huge drag off the joint, burning it down to the paper, held it, then released it in a long sigh. She was right; I was worrying about him, about _this_ , whatever it was. And I was hovering here with her, stuck between fear of waiting much longer to go to him and dread of what would happen when I did. "Okay," I said, "I'll get going, then."

She smiled wanly. "Didn't think it'd take much to talk you into it."

"Hey, no hard feelings, baby..."

"Go on. He's waiting for you."

I sighed, swinging my legs off the bed. "That's what I'm afraid of..."

  
I had barely got the mansion's big oak door shut behind me when I caught his scent. I looked toward the stairs, and sure enough, two yellow eyes glowed in the murk about halfway up.

I still smelled like her, even to someone without my nose. I reeked of sex. And I was about to have a conversation I didn't want to have. So I gritted my teeth and started up the steps, toward him.

"What are you doing still up?" I asked quietly, stopping a step below him.

The floating eyes shifted, flicked away. "You...got a call from Japan. It sounded urgent. I thought you'd want to call them back before it got too late."

"So you stayed up to tell me that?"

The eyes bobbed in a nod.

"Well shit, you coulda left me a note."

"Yes, I suppose you're right. How silly of me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed."

He rose and turned to go up the stairs. On reflex, I reached out and grabbed him by the arm, dragging him back down the steps and spinning him around. For a long second, we stared at each other. I didn't want to be here. I didn't want to talk, to explain to him what I couldn't even explain to myself. But here we were. Without a word, I crushed our mouths together, ignoring his struggling. The sweet taste of his mouth shot straight to my groin; my cock was already pressing into his thigh.

He kept on struggling, though—hard. Much as I wanted him, I didn't want to hurt him, so after a while I let him push me away. I met his eyes calmly as he leaned against the wall, panting, staring at me like a cornered animal—he knew that I'd already won whatever argument we were going to have. He was still here, after all, and if he'd had any chance of resisting me, he'd have 'ported away the second I touched him.

"You still taste like her," he muttered.

"Yeah? Well I should—I fucked her." My cruelty surprised even me. "Wanna make something of it?"

I liked this—liked being able to hurt him with a tossed-off remark. For the first time since North Dakota, I felt good again—a chilly kind of good, but I wasn't saying no to it.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Logan?" Kurt spat, his voice rising.

"Quiet, misfit—you want the whole team down here listening to our little lovers' quarrel?"

The corners of his eyes and his mouth were tight. "I don't understand why you're acting like this," he said, softer.

"Me?" I barked a joyless laugh. _Because you've got me crawling on my hands and knees, you bastard!_ I wanted to snarl at him; _because the thought of losing you scares me to death, yet I want to kill you with my bare hands if you so much as begin to push me away! Because you're my whole fucking life, and I hate you for it!_

Of course, I said none of that. "Why am _I_ acting like this?" I huffed, my voice cracking undignifiedly. " _You_ may as well've told me to go fuck myself yesterday!"

"I did?!" He stared, incredulous. "When?"

"Look," I said, "I did what I did 'cause I wanted to. Lookin' back, maybe it wasn't such a great idea. I'm sorry. Happy?"

His mouth was a thin, straight line. "You really expect me to be?"

"I don't expect you to be anything." I pulled away, letting him slump against the wall. "So are we gonna keep jawin' like this or can we get on with things?"

His eyes fell, defeat in his expression. I moved in on him again, slipping my hand over his throat, thumb stroking his chin. He didn't pull away. I leaned in and kissed him, parting his unresisting lips with my tongue. After a moment, his body relaxed and his arms crept around me.

In a flash, I'd gathered him in my arms and pressed him up against the wall, forcing my thigh between his legs. He was already hard—I was darkly pleased at how easy it had been to get him from angry to aroused. He moaned hoarsely as my mouth slid down his neck, teeth nipping at the corded muscles. I moved both hands to his ass and squeezed, hungry for the familiar shapes and textures of his body. One had slipped down the back of his pants to find flesh and the other cupped his crotch, squeezing, stroking. He was gasping like I was hurting him, his thick fingers digging into my ass, thighs parting to let me get at him.

I paused for a second. "'Port us up?"

He nodded, and after a sickening jolt, we were in my room. We'd barely landed before I was getting rid of his pants, moving us stumbling to the bed. We collapsed on it still entangled; clothes disappeared piecemeal; I found myself with my face in his crotch, breathing in the overwhelming, musky scent of him, reassuring me finally that this was really him. I sucked the head of his cock hungrily for a moment, tongue gliding on the layer of slippery fluid, then licked his shaft and balls all over, needing that salty, human taste to tell me "here, now." I lifted his knees over my shoulders so I could bury my face between his legs. His thighs parted even further, the cords of his groin muscles standing out, his hips moving in little impatient circles. My tongue found the thin, hairless skin behind his balls, and then the tight pucker further down, and swirled around the tiny, tight folds of delicate skin, instinctively bearing toward the center.

I held his cock in my hand and stroked the slick head with my thumb as my tongue probed his asshole, forcing itself a bit at a time past the hard ring of muscle. I knew exactly what I wanted to do—I wanted to make him come with my hands and my mouth, then fuck him and make him come again, and again. I sucked on my fingers and thrust them inside him without preparation, making his whole body jerk before relaxing gradually as I moved them in and out. A scrape of my finger against his prostate and his body arched again, a rough cry tearing out of him—normally he'd care if anyone heard us, but he was beyond the ability to control that now. I took his cock in my mouth again and sucked him hard and fast, fingering his prostate in a complementary rhythm—and within seconds he was coming, crying and gasping my name—Jesus, I'd never heard anything quite so erotic as my own name said like that.

He was still gasping as I sat up and spit into my hand, then lubed my own erection with saliva and come. His had barely flagged—oh, to be young again, I thought as I lifted his legs and spread him wide. My wet fingers quickly found his hole again, and I wasted no time in replacing fingers with cock and sinking into him, driving straight down with all my weight. He groaned and arched, and I felt his muscles stop me—my fingers up there were one thing, but my cock was a different story. Taking a deep breath, I hoisted his knee over my shoulder and then leaned forward, pressing the other knee into the mattress. "Relax," I hissed in a tight whisper. "Or I'll make ya."

He forced out a breathy chuckle. "Try me."

"You asked for it." I pulled out of him nearly all the way, then drove down again, this time sinking in to the hilt.

The noise he made was raw and ragged, utterly animal. It went straight to my balls, and my head felt light as the rest of my blood drained southward. I drew up my hips and began to fuck him slowly, each stroke tearing an inhuman sound from his throat; his neck arched convulsively and his mouth fell open, fangs exposed, eyes clenched shut, like he was terrified of his own pleasure. I could barely hold back; I wanted to hurt him, wanted to pound him and break him in half—and I wanted him to love it, to beg me for it. "I'm gonna fuck yer brains out, misfit," I muttered, sliding out of him and thrusting home again.

"Oh Gott...do it, Logan...fuck me—ungh!"

I slammed into him hard enough to make his teeth chatter. My whole weight was bearing down against his split legs, one thrown over my shoulder and one pinned to the bed next to his head. There wasn't another man or woman I knew that I could twist into this position—that was part of the fun of sex with Kurt. There were other fun things about him, too—I jumped a bit as his tail slid up between my ass cheeks, the muscular tip tickling my own asshole while I pounded into his.

As the tail worked its way inside me, I realized he was talking softly—mumbling, eyes shut, probably not even knowing he was doing it. It was German, and I got the idea pretty easily—he hissed the words between clenched teeth, gutteral and feral, urging me to fuck him harder, to take him roughly, savagely. Of course, he could have been reciting a recipe for sauerkraut for all I knew, but anything would have sounded dirty in that tone of voice. I picked up the pace, thrusting faster, trying to touch him deeper, my body running on its own by now. Kurt too was jerking involuntarily against me, his talking incoherent, punctuated by gasps. Then the stream of words screeched to a halt as his insides tightened around me like a stretched coil, holding my cock in a long, hot second that dissolved into pulsing—my sex expending itself inside him, trying to go deeper even to the very end.

We lay together afterward, him blissfully spent and happy at my side, playing idly with the hair on my chest. Even as I felt sleep blurring the edges of my senses, I wondered morosely if his good mood now would make him forget he'd been mad at me not an hour ago.

Later, I watched him putting his clothes on, not really seeing him, unsure of what I was feeling. Then, it occurred to me—

"Why are you getting dressed?"

"Oh—I was going to go get us some beer from the fridge—wouldn't want to run into anyone the way I was, would I?"

"Beer?"

"Ja, sure—you don't want one?"

I stared at him, innocently asking me if I wanted a beer, and just didn't understand. Hadn't he gotten the memo? We weren't beer buddies anymore. We didn't do those comfy guy things we used to do together—the events of tonight had proven that beyond a doubt. The days of innocent friendship were gone for good. And didn't he think that was weird? Obviously not, since he was heading downstairs to get us beer.

And then I realized I must be going crazy. So friendship as we'd known it was over—what did I expect him to do? Brood over that loss like I was doing? He was getting on with life like I always say a guy should do—never mind the worrying, just do what has to be done. So what the hell was happening to me, that _I_ wasn't the one cheerfully jumping out of bed to get the beer?

He kept an uneasy eye on me as he finished dressing, then left—without repeating the question I hadn't answered. And just as casual as could be, like a bit of paper blowing by on the sidewalk, the thought that maybe I loved him blew through my mind—and the word "love" had a strange, echoey feel to it in my head, like it was vibrating with a forgotten feeling.

My stomach lurched and I thought about that innocent look he'd had just before he left. And I knew at that moment that I'd lose him. I lose everybody I fall in love with, sooner or later.

  
 _"Quick now, here, now, always—  
A condition of complete simplicity  
(Costing not less than everything)..."_

T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

* * *

So I'll admit what I felt for Kurt wasn't all pink hearts and kittens. And I'm no stranger to love—I don't need to be told that it's as contradictory as any other human feeling, and just as destructive. It's funny, though, because I'd always thought that love was, if nothing else, at least something you could live with. But it ain't, as it turns out. At least not with him it wasn't.

The only thing I've experienced quite like it happened to me during my time at the front in the second War. It was spring, but an ugly spring—"breeding lilacs in the dead earth" as the guy in my book says. Dead earth really, because there was nothing but mud—tons of it, everywhere. Three years of trenches and mortar shells had left the whole front a sea of bare dirt, and in spring the rains turned it to mud—tons of it, everywhere. It got in your hair, in the seams of your clothes, in your shoes, even between your teeth. The creases of your skin turned gray with it. You stopped being able to smell anything but it. Every tiny little space filled up with it. And one day, slogging through the mud near the front line, I heard a shell come whistling in much closer than usual and I had only a second to say an empty little prayer before my buddies and I were blown in all directions. I came down with my face right smack in that thick gray sludge, and when I tried to move I realized it was covering me like a wet, heavy shell as I lay, strangely calm, in that way I only ever felt just after a blast.

It was as if I had come out of deep meditation—there was very little sound and the world was just kind of still; I felt nothing, thought nothing, knew nothing except now, eternity, peace. And as I lifted my head I saw a new crocus a few inches away. It was easy to forget it was spring, but there it was, growing up out of the mud, the stalk still a perfect, tender shade of yellow-green, the leaves as soft as flesh, the little violet bud just beginning to open.

As I looked at that little bud, the delicate petals packed together in a whorl seemed to go on forever, like the spiral of a galaxy, and I felt this incredible longing, this love too big to do anything about. Because what _can_ you do with a love like that? I wanted to touch every membrane-thin petal, to pierce to the center of the fleshy, delicate knot—or devour it, crush it in my teeth and taste its insides. I wasn't sure which. I just knew that I had to _do_ something—but there was nothing I could do. Anything other than simple looking would have killed it.

So I just lay there, looking at it, filled with this strange ache, paralyzed. And eventually, I started to hear the screams and moans of the guys nearby who'd been wounded by the blast, so I pulled myself out of the mud, away from the flower, and went to help them, because that's what you do in a war.

Weird as it may sound, making love to Kurt was a little like that. No matter how much I did it, it was never enough. In the wasteland of ugliness and decay that was my life up until him—years of poisoned memories and good things turned to rot—he was something beautiful and pure. When I was with him, I felt this _itch_ that no amount of sex seemed to satisfy. What I felt for him was just too big. I didn't just want to be inside him—I wanted to be _inside_ him, inside his skin, possessing his body like a demon. That itch took me over, like a paranoia, always keeping me running, reaching, grasping.

There were days with him, granted, that were just good. We were close to each other the way we'd once been close, as close as two guys could ever be, and I didn't need more than he could give me. What I wouldn't have done for more days like that—but you can't force that kind of thing. Most of the time, I just burned for him, anxious and dissatisfied and worried about what he was feeling. That last part was the worst.

* * *

I got away from that little brownstone as fast as I could. I was sick, scared, barely seeing as I ran. Couldn't think, couldn't feel anything but sickness, hollowness. So instinctively I turned toward the mansion, toward Ororo.

Ever since we'd talked, I had hated her silent judgment, but now, all I wanted was her wisdom and her fairness. I could give this horror to her and she could make it bearable somehow. She could judge me to her heart's content; all I wanted was someone to make sense of everything. To protect Kurt from me, to protect me from myself—to keep me human.

I found her in her attic nursery, dressed in a yellow sundress, white hair braided down her back. She was standing with her back to the door in the midst of an abundance of green, guiding tiny rainshowers over each one of her plants.

"'Ro," I said, breathless, practically falling at her feet. "'Ro. Help me."

She turned away from her plants and came over to me. "Logan! What's the matter?" she asked, regarding me with concern. Then she must have noticed the death and desolation in my eyes because she suddenly got a lot more scared. "What has happened? Has something happened, Logan?"

"No, darlin'. Not yet."

She heaved an audible sigh of relief, then gestured for me to sit down. "I'm sorry," she said with an embarrassed chuckle. "Sometimes I worry..."

"That I'm gonna fly off the handle an' kill someone?"

"It's just that you had that look, Logan. Like you'd done something...unspeakable."

"I did." I watched her start again. "I mean, I could. It's that—fuck, darlin', I ain't makin' any sense."

"Take your time."

We sat silently together for a moment. Then I tried to explain to her.

"Saw him again today. It was...bad. Bad, that's all I can say. I got angry." I stood up and started to pace, unable to keep still. "He was just bein' so goddamn—so goddamn—I couldn't stand it anymore. It's cowardice, 'Ro, pure and simple cowardice. All I wanted...well, you know what I want. But all I wanted right then was a...was just a straight answer."

Her eyes followed me as I paced. "And he couldn't give you one."

"Nope. I got angry. Lost my temper. Yelled a little."

"It happens. That's hardly something to be upset about."

I stopped and turned to face her. "You don't understand—I got mad. I mean I got Mad. And I realized, 'Roro, that I could kill him. I have it in me. If I ever let myself lose control, ever let things get too out of hand...just like that, I saw it happening..."

I watched her face as I babbled, searching it defensively for some sign of judgment. But there was only sadness and worry there. Here was someone else I didn't deserve, I thought miserably. All Ororo ever wanted was the best for everyone and all I had for her was suspicion and ungratefulness.

I realized I'd trailed off. "And what kind of help do you want from me?" she asked finally, still sitting calmly with her hands in her lap.

"You just gotta make sure I never do it, 'Ro!" I said, practically shouting at her. "Protect him—Christ, if I ever hurt him, I'd rather be dead—I'm an animal, I should be locked up—"

"You are _not_ an animal, Logan," she said softly, getting to her feet. She was a full head taller than me, and I felt her unbelievable presence like the charged heaviness of a looming thunderhead. "You are a man, and you know that. You do not want to face it right now because it is hard to be a man. Knowing right from wrong is a heavy burden. And love is a difficult burden too." She took a step forward and put her hands on my shoulders, slender and steel-strong. "But if you really do love him, and I think that you do, you will let him go, because it is what he wants, and that is the difference between man and beast: a man can think beyond himself. A man can love."

I avoided her eyes. "I could kill him," I murmured.

"Yes, you _could_. But you will not. Look within yourself, Logan, and find your love for Kurt. Hold onto it, because it is what makes you human."

I nodded. I hoped to whatever was holy that she was right.

"I know that right now, you feel it like a fire," she went on, "like something unsatisfiable. But there is a way to satisfy it. Let him go, Logan. _That_ is the truest expression of your love for him, not something you could ever do with your body."

I stared at her and nodded again, numb. I thought about that little crocus I'd fallen in love with sixty years ago in the mud. What had happened to that feeling, that strange feeling like a hot bubble growing inside me, squeezing my heart? Had the bubble just popped? Or was I still burning, somewhere in some forgotten corner of myself?

Could I do it? Could I really give up, not just lie to myself but truly _give him up_ and accept my loss, and I mean _really_ accept it? I had my doubts.

"I'll never get him out of my mind," I said. "I'll never have any peace."

Her smile was sad and a little tired. "Letting him go is the only way you ever _will_ have peace."

She was right. Had I had peace while we were together? Maybe at the beginning. But it hadn't lasted—I hadn't let it.

I was somewhere between hating her for betraying the only dream I had left, and falling at her feet and worshipping her wisdom. Either way, I felt miles away from her. I felt miles away from everything.

"Damn, I freakin' hate this," I muttered miserably.

"I know." Her voice was compassionate—she was trying to reach out to me. "I know what I'm telling you is bitter medicine. But it is right."

I nodded numbly, gave her a mumbled "thanks," and turned for the door, leaving her standing in the midst of living green.

* * *

Some time after our first real "lovers' tiff," as I bitterly came to think of the incident with Sammy, I took off for a while. I needed air, I needed solitude, and most of all I needed discipline—I was addicted to him, and that's the kind of weakness that can destroy a man from the inside. I didn't escape him, though—even thousands of miles away from him in the wilderness, all I could think was how much I missed him, and how many different things there _were_ to miss about a person. I missed his body, his voice, the taste of his mouth, the feel of his weight on my arm in the middle of the night. I missed the sound of his laugh, and I even missed his teasing—even though I could have sworn I hated it when he was around.

The trip, as far as I was concerned, was a failure. I was in love with a man who had once been my friend—and now he was my enemy, because he had the power to take himself away, and there was no way to be sure he wouldn't use it.

So I returned, humbled and afraid, mad at myself for being so relieved to be near him again. I got home late, and went straight to his room without bothering to stop at mine. At his door, my hand paused on the doorknob, then lifted to knock.

I don't know why I did that. I _never_ knocked at his door—there wasn't anything he could be doing that I wasn't allowed to see. It didn't feel right this time, though, walking in on him like I owned the place. Every step that took me closer to him felt awkward.

Even his gentle voice telling me to come in didn't put me at ease. I opened the door and saw him sitting in his bed, naked to the waist and curled up by his lamp with a book. Against the white bed and yellow glow of the lamp, his shadowy body was like a rip in the world, and his burning eyes, innocently scanning a page of his book, seemed like they were peering out from a world of light beyond.

As soon as he saw who I was, joy broke out over his face—one of those heart-stopping smiles that had haunted my dreams the whole time I'd been away. "You're back!" he exclaimed, dropping the book into his lap and sitting up. "Mein Gott—why didn't you call? I was—never mind. I was nothing. I'm glad you're home."

I came to the edge of his bed and sat down, leaning against his knees, just wanting to feel _some_ part of him touching me. He opened his mouth to say something but I'd leaned in and kissed him before he could get anything out. I pushed the book out of his lap onto the floor and took his head in my hands, eager to get down to business.

He didn't protest the abruptness of it; he was used to this kind of thing from me. And I didn't want to hear his voice right now. I didn't want his questions about where I'd been, or his concerned fussing over me. All I wanted was the silent security of his body—the rhythmic tense and yield of muscles under cool, slick fur, the sweet, elemental taste of his mouth, the yearning heat of his cock. His body I could satisfy—and hopefully do a good enough job of it that his gratitude would keep him from demanding anything more.

I leaned into him like I was falling, forcing the kiss deeper, drawn down helplessly by the electric surface of his flesh. My hand found the front of his shorts on its own, and then it was impatiently tearing them away. His hips surged into my touch, slicing the livid, silky length of his cock across my palm. A growl of triumph escaped my throat.

He hadn't tried to say another word. His eyes were screwed shut, his body already controlled by arousal, no longer his own. Whatever he was thinking—or thinking of saying to me—had blown away like a handful of dust, and the only things that mattered were my teeth on his neck, and my fingers raking his scalp, and the straining, contesting forces of our excitement grinding together.

My hand fumbled around in space for the lamp switch, almost knocking over the thing when I found it. In the dark, I slid him further down the bed so that he was flat on his back, pushed the blankets away with my foot, and moved my mouth down his chest, fingers sliding through fur to find a nipple. I knew every inch of him by heart—how every part of his body tasted and smelled, and each little quirk of muscle and bone, like the perfectly flat diamond-shaped area right below his sternum where the fur gathered in a swirl. He sighed as I let my tongue explore that little area, as he always did. I kissed my way further down, between the soft swells of his abs, into and out of a shallow, hairless navel, and the smell of him got richer, muskier, until at last I buried my nose in the thatch of dark indigo hair at his groin, letting my whiskers tickle the hard shaft against my cheek.

He made an urgent little noise and arched his back, his groin coming up to grind against my face. This was where I wanted to be, this was peace—nothing but darkness and the smell of his body filling everything, strong and heavy and warm. This was my home, as much of a home as a man has a right to wish for, the hot, living crux where thighs and body joined, the end of all searching and wanting. I hauled myself up onto my elbows and sank to close my mouth on the head of his cock, salty animal taste and slippery flesh like molten glass and everything I ever wanted.

His hips came up with an eager cry. I propped my forearms on his pelvis to keep him from taking over, and dipped my head to swallow more of his cock. Without seeing, I let my hand wander across his belly, such a sensitive place for him, with a light touch that made the muscles there jump and shiver. His hips shook with the strain of not being able to take what he wanted, and as I let my head sink, I felt him buck under me again. So much power, the only kind of power I needed—but the kind that made me want to be generous with it, to be merciful. I sucked him hard, from tip to root and back, then worked the head relentlessly, impatient to satisfy him.

I let go of his hips and he thrust hard into my mouth, hands flying to my head, groaning deep from his belly. He was needy and raw-nerved, exactly like I wanted him, as only a man is when he hasn't been touched for a month. And I knew he hadn't been touched—sometimes I worried about how much it mattered to me, though, that he let only _me_ touch him this way. But now, with his cock in my mouth and his frantic moaning filling my head, the question seemed worthless, a technicality for a more banal moment.

He came hard the first time. The second time took longer with both of us not so desperate. The third time wore him out, and we lay twisted together in his bed, sweaty and exhausted, listening to our uneven breathing, not talking.

Just as I was about to drift off, his voice in the darkness startled me awake. "Logan," he said softly, "I don't understand...why didn't you tell me you were going?"

I groaned. "What, I have to tell you everything I'm gonna do now?"

"You've never left without telling me, Logan. Never. Not even before..."

"Before..."

"Before...this, you know, happened."

"Before I started plowin' ya, y'mean?"

He sighed in irritation. "You can do whatever you like. I'm used to your running off occasionally to be alone. But you've always been quite frank about it. You've never... _snuck_ off like that. You just disappeared one day—what was I supposed to think?"

"You weren't supposed to think anything. I ain't in the habit of explainin' myself—you don't like it, that ain't my problem."

We had untangled ourselves as the argument escalated, and by now we were on opposite sides of the bed. He sighed again. "I was only worried, is all," he said. "I didn't know if something was wrong, if you needed my help..."

"I need your help, I'll ask for it, Elf," I grumbled. "Calm down. I'm here now, ain't I? Let's just...come back over here, will ya?"

Reluctantly, he crawled over and settled into my arms again. "Please," he said softly, "just tell me you're going next time. That's all I ask."

I didn't reply. I tightened my arms around him and willed myself to fall asleep.

  
Three months later, I walked into his room and found him packing. You know the rest.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, I got back to my life, such as it was. I went on missions. I strategized with Summers and Chuck. I drank beer at Harry's, alone or with easy company. I trained with the X-Men. I did all the things I'd been doing before Kurt left. I ignored the ache in my heart studiously, like you ignore an annoying crank caller. Every time something in me said _go to him! try again!_ I just let the phone ring and concentrated on whatever stupid details were handy.

But eventually I realized that it wasn't enough. The last time I'd seen him, we had been angry, and I'd come close to hurting him. At the very least, I had to make peace with him over that, and I had to _tell_ him that I'd resolved to let him go. That resolution didn't hold water for me unless he knew about it—I had to give him my word, so that I wouldn't be tempted to break it.

On a quiet Friday morning, I got out my bike and headed for Brooklyn. This time, there was no one at the reception desk, so I wandered back toward the chapel, remembering the way from before. The place was quiet as a tomb; with my luck, everyone would be in their rooms studying and I'd have to come back later.

I poked my head in the chapel door and picked up his scent immediately. Sure enough, there he was at the altar, a black smudge on a square of light, kneeling. He was praying, dressed in the nondescript black uniform of the student priest. I looked at him and swallowed, hating what I was about to do. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right. But I'd made my decision and I couldn't afford to think about it—this was all just the downslope.

If he heard me walking up the aisle toward him, he didn't show it. When I reached the first pew, I focussed my gaze on the back of his bowed head and said his name.

He turned quickly, showing me his startled face, all the shadows washed away in the filtered light. I saw something in his eyes when they met mine—prayer had left his soul naked and raw, and for a second he was laid open. Everything was exposed as he recognized me—love, desire, need, most of all desire—all those fucking things I'd been dying to see in his face and had just about given up hope of ever seeing again. For just that second, he let me see it all—before he remembered that I was the enemy now, and that he was supposed to be hiding it from me.

But that second was all I needed. Without a second thought, I threw my plan out the window. I dove toward him and caught him by the shoulders, squeezing him tightly, painfully, unsure whether it was anger or passion driving me on. "Just say it," I breathed, clamping him vice-hard against me. "Just say you still want me. Say you know that you're throwing away the best thing you've ever had. Say it..."

"Logan, please..." His eyes were wild as he struggled in my grasp.

I curled my lips back into a vicious smile. "Why aren't ya 'portin', Elf? Better yet, using some of that jujitsu I took all that time to teach ya? Maybe 'cause you don't want me to let go? Just _admit_ it, Elf, that's all I want!"

"That's not all you want," Kurt muttered, struggling even harder.

Something about the contemptuous way he said it got me madder, and as rage seized my body in its hot fist, like a reflex I shoved him away, hard, knocking him to the floor. His head hit the steps of the altar and he lay there, stunned—he was far from combat form these days, and I'd struck at the moment of maximum vulnerability. He didn't have a chance against me—I had the mental and physical advantage. The fighter in him knew that and had already given up.

Still shaking with fury, I fell on top of him, pinning his arms and legs. My vision was suddenly filled by that little square of white at his throat, sitting there like a blank, like the cause of his silence. I took hold of it and ripped as hard as I could. Both the collar and the neck of the cassock came away easily, and I continued to tear downward, splitting open the front of the robe, all the way down to his waist. Finally I could see his flesh, free of that black shroud, and I knew even more certainly that he was the same man he'd always been, still _mine_ no matter what he said.

"Hey! What's going on here?"

Shouts behind me interrupted the joy of my discovery. Quickly, I looked at Kurt's face—but it was turned away from me, his head lying still against the step, eyes wide open and blank. He breathed heavily but didn't struggle any longer, withdrawn off to some place away from this struggle, away from my need and anger and demands for answers. I turned to look over my shoulder and saw two priests hurrying up the aisle toward us.

In a flash I leapt up off of Kurt and turned to face them, the claws coming out automatically. It was ridiculous—they were two middle-aged priests, not a threat at all—but they'd come to get between us, and that was enough to make me good and mad. They stopped in their tracks as soon as they saw the claws, hands held out tentatively toward me, begging me to keep my distance.

"We've already called the police," one of them said. "Please, just leave."

I didn't believe him about the police, and anyway I didn't care. I turned around to look at Kurt on the steps—he was just now getting to his feet, the ruined robe hanging in tatters from his shoulders. And he was staring at me with unchecked, narrow-eyed horror, his face filled with furious disbelief at my betrayal—and I felt a pit open up inside of me. I stepped toward him, reached for his face, an animal cry welling in my throat, but he twitched away like I'd burned him. A cloud fell over my brain and I knew that all hope, all meaning, was gone. I stood, lurching, hearing a weird, strangled sound in the air that couldn't possibly have come from my throat, and ran unsteadily past the two frightened priests. And as my body sailed over the threshold of that chapel, all memory stops—in any way I can convey to you, anyway.

* * *

Once, and once only, did I ever go into a church with him.

It was that winter, and we were in Italy. Milan, team business. Very romantic; but that's another story.

He wanted to see some of the old churches in the city. He invited me along, I accepted; I was curious about this part of him, wanted to see what it was all about. I thought I knew him, but there's knowing someone and then there's knowing someone. He was good at giving the impression that he was letting you inside. But I'd known him for two years before I even learned he was religious, for pete's sake. I guess I hoped I'd catch a glimpse of something in him while he was in those peaceful, holy places, looking at images of his God, his guard relaxed. I couldn't tell you what I hoped to see.

  
"It's called a pietà."

"It sure is...intense."

"That's the idea. It's a traditional subject in Catholic art—the Virgin Mary cradling the body of the dead Christ. It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yeah. _He's_ beautiful. His body kind of looks like yours, come to think of it."

"Hm. Well, it's just a body."

"I guess." I shifted uncomfortably. "It is kinda troubling, though."

"Why?"

"Doesn't it remind you a little of those other statues—the ones of Mary with Jesus as a baby? She's holding him just like that—except he's a naked, bloody corpse here."

"Yes. Mary stands at both Christ's entrance to and exit from the world. She is His humanity, and when are we more human than when we are born and when we die?"

"Huh. That's pretty heavy."

"That's the idea behind these images of mourning over Christ's body—pity for His flesh, the part of Him that could suffer and die. His eventual resurrection and ascension can't erase the fact that He suffered as much as it is possible for a human being to suffer."

"Well, okay, I guess that's what I don't understand. If everyone knew Jesus was the son of God and would defeat death, then why is Mary so sad?"

"Because she's human, and He is the son she gave birth to. And right now, He isn't the truth and the way and the life for her, He's just her dead child, and she's heartbroken. We here on earth can plan for the afterlife as much as we please, but the only reality we actually know is the mortal life. It is all we can understand—until the time comes for us to leave it. Maybe that's un-Christian of me to say, but it's how I feel."

"Huh."

I stood there uneasily, feeling strangely awed.

"I cannot look at something like this and not be moved. On the one hand, it is heartwrenchingly sad, but on the other hand, I know that in a similar way, _I_ am cradled in the arms of God, that He pities my poor, earthbound body, and that His love is as limitless as a mother's for her only child."

"Geez. That must be a nice feeling."

"Do you not find this image moving?"

"Sure I do. I don't feel cradled by God, though."

I could feel his eyes on me.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I have _you_ to hold me when I'm lonely, remember?"

"But surely I am not enough. Surely you must feel very alone in the world..."

"Well, those're the breaks. I don't feel alone when you're around, and that's good enough for me."

"As you wish."

I smiled.

"Thanks. Can we get going? It's so cold in here..."

"Whatever you desire, beliebt Freund."

  
We laughed a little, figuring me for a loss as far as religion was concerned. It was such a beautiful city, and walking next to him in the noisy, purple twilight, I never felt such peace before. I wanted to tell him that this was _my_ church, this old stone-paved city, and him at my side—he was the only thing _in_ that city as far as I was concerned.

* * *

On the cusp of waking, I felt soft, furred hands touching my face.

The first things I saw were Kurt's eyes, big and frightened. That expression of desperate concern, always for someone else's welfare and not his own, made him look so incredibly young, like he'd looked when I first met him and he was still a kid in a man's body. My heart skipped a beat—what year had I woken into? Had I dreamed it all? For a moment, I didn't even notice the clerical collar at his throat. Then I saw it; it was undone, hanging by a snap on his shirt, dangling against his collarbone like one half of an undone necktie.

I swallowed my disappointment, crinkling my lips into the best wry smirk I could muster. "Is this heaven?" The hoarse whisper where my voice should have been surprised me.

He smiled shakily but widely, and I thought I saw unshed tears in his eyes. "How do you feel?" he asked me gently.

"Okay," I croaked, testing my limbs a little. "Bit sore, maybe." I sucked in a deep breath, stretched, then lay still. "How long have I been out?"

"You've only been unconscious for a few hours. Logan...do you remember anything of what happened?"

I nodded guiltily. "The chapel. Did something...bad. Things're fuzzy after that."

"Yes. Well. That was more than a week ago."

I started. "You said I'd only been out for a few hours!"

He sighed, gathering strength for an explanation. "After the—the incident in the chapel, you ran out into the street, and I went after you. Frankly, I was afraid you were going to hurt yourself, or someone else. You wouldn't let me near you, though. So I backed off, and went to call the X-Men. When we finally found you again, you were living like an animal in Prospect Park. Jean and I stalked you for three days before you'd let either one of us come within forty feet."

I looked back and forth between those eyes, so filled with gentle concern, and the undone priest's collar still at his neck. "So what are you still doing here?" I asked.

"I couldn't leave you, not like that. You are still my friend. No matter what has happened."

"What I did—what I _could've_ done—it's unforgivable..."

"Nothing is unforgivable. You aren't well, Logan, and I can't just leave you when you need me like this."

I opened my mouth to answer—but the words died in my throat. I was his charity case now, apparently—or was this love? Was he giving in to longing, or was he still trying to serve God? How could I tell the difference?

"Does this mean you're, you know...staying?"

"Yes."

"But the priesthood...?" I tried to gesture at the collar.

"...will continue with or without me. There are other men whom God has chosen to be ministers of His will. He'll understand that I'm needed elsewhere."

"Needed..." If he only knew...but I wanted him to need _me—_ I wanted his desperation, not his kindness. "Yeah, I need you...I'm going crazy without you." I tried to laugh at my poor excuse for a joke, but the result sounded more like a sob.

His face was full of compassion, and I hated myself for doubting him. "I'm here," he said. "I won't leave you alone." Then he bent forward and laid his mouth over mine.

It was my wildest goddamn dream come true. So how could I tell him what I wanted to tell him: that his pity would kill me, that I didn't want his selfless, indifferent love? I couldn't seem to make that matter to me now. I pulled him down on top of me and rolled over on the med lab bed, pinning that slender body I'd missed so much under my own old bones. I would never know him. I would never be certain of his love. I'd had one clear moment of knowing exactly what he wanted, and that was the moment when he walked away from me.

I pulled his clothes off without speaking. There was no thinking, no relief or sadness or even joy. Just a desperate need to reach the goal, to take the thing I'd been longing for all this time. There was no past, no future—only now. At least for now, I had him. And who knew how long it would last? I slipped my hands into his hair and kissed him deeper, happy in a way for whatever time was left. I didn't have a second to waste.

  
 _"Love is the unfamiliar Name  
Behind the hands that wove  
The intolerable shirt of flame  
Which human power cannot remove.  
We only live, only suspire  
Consumed by either fire or fire."_

T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

**Author's Note:**

> The lines Logan quotes in the first paragraph of part 1 are from "East Coker," lines 201-2. The lines he quotes in part 5 when recounting his memory of World War II are from "The Waste Land," lines 1-2.


End file.
